How to Search the Collection

For the best keyword search results, enter at least two or three notable objects, colors, or figures that appear in the painting you wish to find.You can also use keyword search to browse through all paintings of elephants by entering "elephant" into the search.

If you know the Manufacturer of the painting you are looking for, enter it in the Keyword search along with any descriptors. We do not have the Manufacturer information entered for every painting, so this may not work with certain PBNs. 

The keyword search now searches sizes as well. If you know the size (of the panel/painting itself, not including frame, rounded to the nearest whole inch) you can enter it into the keyword search. Enter it in the format (width)x(height) with no spaces, i.e. 12x16.

If you know the title or a word in the title of the PBN you wish to find, give it a try in the Title search field. We do not know the titles of all of the paintings, so it is possible that the painting is in the collection sans title.

If you know the manufacturer or title of a painting and we do not have it listed please let us know!

Common Keyword Terms:

Landscape is used for land scenes without any manmade objects or animals, people, fish or birds.

Seascape is used for ocean and water scenes without any manmade objects or animals, people fish or birds. 

Still Life is used to describe paintings depicting an arrangement of inanimate objects such as a vase of flowers on a desk or a bowl of fruit and a book on a table.

Numbers (two, three...) are used when the painting has something obviously countable like two horses or three ducks. One is very seldom used. Very large numbers are seldom used. Instead of "twenty-four birds" simply say " birds." Spell out the appropriate number in the search along with the object.

Words appearing in the painting are copied into the keyword section. If you are looking for a street scene that includes an awning with the word "Cafe" on it, enter "Cafe" in the search. 

Some terms (water, trees, ship or boat, horse, dog, mountain, etc) appear in many PBNs, so searching for a particular ship or horse may result in several pages of results. You can either page through the thumbnail pictures until you find what you want or enter additional words to narrow it down further. Notable colors or background objects can be helpful, although many landscapes, seascapes and farm scenes have very similar color schemes and objects. Depending upon the PBN you may have to look through a few pages of results.

If you enter a word that is not in the PBN's keyword list you will get no results even if all the other words that you entered are in the list. Try removing any uncommon or technical words or subjective terms.

Things to Avoid:

The serach program has no imagination so if a  keyword is spelled wrong it cant find it. And, the search program will also say " No records were found. " if your keywords include any that are not in a pbn's list. Therefore avoid using prepositions (on, with, at, near, etc), articles (the, a/an) and conjunctions (and). Instead of "A brown dog with white spots and a blue collar ", search for "brown dog white spots blue collar". If nothing comes up, try eliminating some terms-- e.g. "brown dog spots collar".

Do not use "/", "\" or "-". They do not come up in the searches. Use either a space or write the term without the punctuation; e.g. "3D" instead of 3-D".